I want to thank you all for being such a great resource in my hair transplant journey. I used this site extensively to learn about hair transplants and I would like to share with you all my hair transplant experience thus far so people can benefit.

I started my hair loss in my late teens, receding heavily at my temples. I wish I had done something much earlier to combat my hair loss as I have lost a lot of my hair in the front and top since then. I started shaving my head to a 2 the last few years after growing tired of a combover.

How I found my clinic:

I did a lot of research online and compiled a list of top clinics in North America and Europe. Then I contacted each clinic for an online consultation where I sent them pictures and videos of my hair. I found the best way to organize info I receive and to compare and narrow down the clinics to what suited me best was to create an excel spread sheet. I recorded many things which included the number of grafts they recommend, the expected hairline design, and price. After narrowing down a few clinics, I looked extensively at patient reviews on hair transplant forums to make sure people are getting great results. I found that Erdogan at ASMED produced wonderful results at a reasonable price, but had a long waitlist and wanted me to be on finasteride for at least 6 months. Several others like Bisanga and Feriduni also produced great results but was a little more expensive. HDC is a clinic that one of my friends had gone to about 6 months earlier than I did. He got good results from them and so did a lot of other people online. Their price was also a little lower than Bisanga and Feriduni. So after contacting them for a consultation, they made me feel comfortable with their level of service and I went ahead and set up a surgery.

The transplant experience:

The clinic made me feel very comfortable that I was in good hands the whole time. Dr. Maras and the techs that worked there were very experienced, professional, and courteous. I was picked up from the airport by a driver sent by the clinic and they provided free accommodations for up to 7 days.

At HDC, Dr. Maras does the punching and excision and the techs do the extraction and placing of grafts. The techs have all been working there for a long time, so I felt very comfortable. The surgery itself took over the course of 2 days, about 4/5 hours each day. Like most people on here say, the most uncomfortable part was having to lie down in an uncomfortable position. There was no pain at all aside from the anesthesia injections.

The clinic offers free accommodation for up to 7 days, which I took advantage of. Post surgery I went into the clinic everyday and got my hair washed by them and they made sure everything was going well. By the time I left Cyprus, the scabbing had already been washed off my head.

Here is a picture with Dr. Maras 4 days post op. Swelling has gone down considerably by then.

Vlog of my hair transplant journey:

I feel the best way to share my experience with you all is through visuals rather than words, so I decided to make videos documenting my whole experience in a vlog format. I have just finished and uploaded my first three vlogs on youtube.

I am spending a lot of time to try to make these videos professional (first time video maker), and will upload a new vlog whenever it is done. I hope that people will find these videos documenting the whole process helpful. I will post in this thread whenever a new vlog is uploaded, but you can also subscribe to my channel to be notified. I really appreciate your support!

Progress pictures:

I have just hit 5 months and have already seen a lot of results. I uploaded a before after shot in this post of the top and front of my hair. You can see that my hairline has been lowered by quite a bit. The hair is looking really great in pictures and even in sunlight. However, up close I am really hoping the front will gain more in density. I will continue to post more old pictures that I took after the surgery and update you guys with my progress here.

Also I made an Instagram account where I upload my progress pictures, so be sure to support, follow me there, and check that out too!

I am currently doing the big 3 regime. I started finasteride in January 2017 and luckily had no side effects. The Minoxidil I started 2 months after surgery and Nizoral I just started a week ago. Nizoral has caused a bit of shedding after I incorporated it into my regime. I'm planning on continuing for longer before I decide if want to keep using it or not.

Thank you so much for reading my post! I hope that you find my content helpful if you are considering or have had a hair transplant. Feel free to reach out with any comments and questions. I look forward to providing more content for the hair loss community!

Welcome to the forum Hairplanter. It's nice to hear it helped you in your research.
You got a good amount of grafts, as usual the docs work looks nice and clean post op.
At 5 months your growth is looking good, you already look so much better.
I'll look forward to following your progress.
Thanks for sharing your story and all the best for the following months.

Thanks Bigmac! It's grown quite a lot for 5 months and I'm excited about the progress. Although my hair looks dense in pictures and from far away, up close the hairline looks thin. I'm hoping to gain more density up front.

Does anyone know how much density/thickening I should expect on my hairline and right behind it after the 5 months mark?

Your hair line looks good right now, especially comparing to your pre op pictures. It looks like a good density was placed in your post op pictures so I`d pretty much assume it will thicken up.
Most transplanted hair lines will look see through or thinner at certain angles and lighting conditions. The main purpose is it looks natural, gives an illusion of fullness (dependant on level of loss) and frames your face which I think this HT will achieve all of them for you.

Hey guys! I have uploaded a video of my 5 month progress. I will comb through my hair in this video so you can review my hair and see the before and after changes and result.

You can really see the progress I have made especially on the hairline. I do have a see through effect currently so hopefully I can gain some density. As my hair grow longer maybe I can gel it back for more coverage too.

Feel free to reach out with any comments, questions, or ideas on new videos. Subscribe to my channel if you like my content, I would REALLY appreciate the support and motivate me to continue making these videos. I look forward to providing more content for the hair loss community!

You can really see the swelling set in after the first day and I am almost unrecognizable on the second day.

Also I got my first wash on day 2, which you can check out here!

Feel free to reach out with any comments, questions, or ideas on new videos. PLEASE upvote and subscribe to my channel if you like my content, I would REALLY appreciate the support and motivate me to continue making these videos. I look forward to providing more content for the hair loss community!

Hairplanter, congratulations for your beautiful procedure, your result at 5 months looks awesome and very promising, still more improvement is coming, this is the kind of result were you have to renew the photo of your passport

Keep it up the good work!

____________________I'm a hair transplant consultant since 2004 and I have been a patient few times, if you need guidance I'm here to help.
Consultant: Dr Andrade and HDC Clinic
Contact: trasplantesdepelo@gmail.com

Hello Hairplanter, can I ask you how many months postop are you in this video?, you hair looks great now, Im curious which stage corresponds...

Do you have some video of the 6 months?

Thank you and congrats for your good result.

____________________I'm a hair transplant consultant since 2004 and I have been a patient few times, if you need guidance I'm here to help.
Consultant: Dr Andrade and HDC Clinic
Contact: trasplantesdepelo@gmail.com

Wow these videos and posts are awesome and very helpful for people considering Hair transplantation.
Your hair looks good like the guys have said and it certainly frames your face well. I think the guys at HDC have done a cracking job and the work is of a high standard like always.....and still with more to come over the coming months your certainly set for a home run of a result imo..

Thanks for taking the time to post your results thus far and to show us your videos on here.
regards BN